S3:E6
Todd Libby: Welcome to the Front End Nerdery podcast, a podcast about front end development design, and anything else that I decide we want to talk about. Um, any, anything else that, um, you know, that comes up. It's more than just front end folks. Um, Again, my name's Todd Libby. I'm the host, uh, my co-host Homer, uh, game¬–Gaines.
Todd Libby: I almost said Homer Simpson. Wow. Uh, it's early here. No coffee. Homer Gaines isn't here with me today, but that's all right, Homer. We miss you and hope to see back soon. Um, and, oh, where'd I put Tina? Of course. Here we go. Uh, with me today. I have a Developer Advocate, Front End Developer slash Engineer, and apparently I have to find out about this.
Todd Libby: Your favorite TV show is Billions
Alvin Bryan: Oh yeah.
Todd Libby: and it's on now TV in the UK and Showtime in the us. So I gotta find out more about that. Uh, Alvin Bryan, uh, thank you for joining me today. How are you?
Alvin Bryan: Of course. Thanks. Um, I'm great. I'm super happy to be here. I, I love podcasts. It's.
Todd Libby: So, uh, I also forgot developer advocate at Contentful, so we, I would like discuss that a little bit too. So, uh, if I missed anything, go ahead and tell the, the listeners a little bit more about yourself.
Alvin Bryan: For sure you've got it covered. I, I've been doing front end for a while and, um, since last year, so it's been about a year and something I transitioned to doing, uh, developer relations full-time and yeah, I've been a developer advocate at Contentful for just over a year.
Todd Libby: Cool. So, um, what I like to talk about, With, uh, my guests and I hadn't been doing this for a while, but what is your favorite part of front end development? And what really gets you excited doing, uh, that part of the work? And as we dive into the question, your favorite part, and then, uh, what do you see as something that really, uh, I guess, grinds your gears and something about front end that, you know, just kind of gets under your skin that, that, uh, something that might be a problem?
Todd Libby: For instance,
Alvin Bryan: For sure. Favorite part. I think for me, and that's been the case forever, it's when I'm working with a designer and they, and they come up to me and they say, okay, so I have this crazy idea. I'm not sure if, if it's possible, but can, can we try to do this? And, and, and then my response, it's always, oh, I'm not sure what I'm gonna try. And it's always been my favorite thing is, uh, collaborating quickly with design, uh, quickly, not necessarily quickly, but closely with designers and trying to like, Just make beautiful stuff. Um, on the opposite end of that, what, I guess what grinds my gears probably a pretty common answer I'm sure is um, the fact that we're shipping react for everything. Pretty, pretty standard answer, but it's still a problem. So it's, it's still grinding my gears.
Todd Libby: Yep. Yeah, I saw recently on Twitter, a little kerfuffle about that. So, um, I won't go into that, but, you know, wa–waves were made. Um, so yeah, I've been doing front end for my entire career mostly. And it, my, you know, my favorite part was just creating things and building things from the very beginning, e–even when.
Todd Libby: So again, and I've dated myself in other, uh, episodes. Um, I remember JavaScript in its infancy and even before there was CSS. So I mean, even when I was building things and say like, I learned how to, to program and Commodore basic and. Basic and scheme and just making, building things and creating things and making things come alive with code was always my favorite thing.
Todd Libby: Then when, you know, HTML came out, um, Well, HTML and CSSs came when CSS came out with HTMLs making thing, building things for the web, like a website or a webpage, and then making it, you know, look a certain way. And, and that was always my favorite thing to do. Um,
Alvin Bryan: Did ever, did you ever, uh, use Flash?
Todd Libby: I did.
Alvin Bryan: Nice.
Todd Libby: That's, that's a double-edged sword for me because one, I loved doing Flash. I loved doing,
Alvin Bryan: wasn't it? Yeah.
Todd Libby: act action script. On the other hand, being me, being an accessibility person wasn't the most accessible
Alvin Bryan: Yeah.
Todd Libby: so, It was a surprise when, you know, bill, um, not Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, uh, came out with that, um, art article or whatever, and he just, and he single handedly killed it, it seemed so.
Todd Libby: Um, but yes, I did do Flash, I did do action script, um, not. To the, so a lot, if you remember the sites like maybe too advanced for instance. Um, they were a big player in the United States as far as Flash development goes, um, I think they may still be on the, I. Internet archive machine? I'm not sure. I'm, I'm pretty sure I did see something.
Todd Libby: Um, and then there's, uh, there's an account on Twitter that, um, I'll have to find it. I'll send you the link to it if I can find it. But, um, Yeah, they, nothing, you know, there was these intricate interfaces. I didn't do anything like that. I, I did like simple stuff, simple transitions and, and just, you know, hokey little stuff.
Todd Libby: But still, I loved doing what I did. I knew a lot of people that did Flash and, um, They were really good at what they did, plus they were designers as well. So you had that, you know, that hybrid and they created some of the best stuff that I had ever seen at the time. Um, my only
Alvin Bryan: the creativity that went into Flash
Todd Libby: yeah,
Alvin Bryan: crazy. Yeah.
Todd Libby: yeah. And that's the kind of creativity I loved working with.
Todd Libby: And, and I still do, I still love working with that kind of creative, uh, person. So. Diving into front end, I wanted to talk about Astro when you had mentioned Astro and Svelte. So a little rundown. Gimme a little rundown on Astro and what Astro is.
Alvin Bryan: Sure. Um, so this is related to what I said about people shipping React for everything. Astro is a, so it's a web framework. Um, And it's focused on, uh, content, content heavy sites. Right. And what's particular about it is it's, it supports other frameworks. So the idea is basically it's, it's a, it's a site generator and, um, a service that rendering framework that can use components from other frameworks.
Alvin Bryan: So, um, it ships with no JavaScript by default. is great. So by default you can give it, um, a React component, a Vue component, and it will server site rendering them. And so, and turn that into Java–into no JavaScript, so into just HTML and ship that to the client, not, not ship that to the client, turn that into a static site or do this on the server if you want to run it with server-side rendering.
Todd Libby: Right. Okay. Um,
Todd Libby: I'm seeing more and more people talking about Astro and building a site with Astro and more and more, uh, content creators, um, such as James Quick. Who are building, um, Astro courses to teach people about Astro, so that's interesting. I definitely have to check it out now. On the other, on the other, another topic is Svelte so don't know anything about Astro other than it exists and I don't know anything about Svelte.
Todd Libby: The only thing I do know is that it exists. So let, tell me a little bit about Svelte,
Alvin Bryan: Um, do, how much of React do you know? Do you expect your listeners to know to be?
Todd Libby: uh, listeners are fairly knowledgeable. I, you know, I believe, and as far as I go, I know enough React to be dangerous, let's put way.
Alvin Bryan: great. So, um, the, the idea with React and what it was, um,
Todd Libby: I got a little audio issue or video issue here, so I'm not getting any audio, so we'll have to see what's going on. we go.
Todd Libby: Yeah, something on my end or your end might've done something, so I can just
Alvin Bryan: I apologize.
Todd Libby: I can, Nope, no worries. Um, I can just clip that part out. So, um, yeah, tell me a little bit about Svelte.
Alvin Bryan: Sure. So what React did is it, it, you know, it introduced this idea of components and then another big part of React is the virtual DOM, right? In that, um, we understand that DOM updates are expensive. So as a result, we maintain this virtual DOM and then, uh, we–we calculate what changed on the virtual DOM, and then we apply the result of that to the actual DOM, right. All of this happens, um, at runtime and React will ship or runtime that has all this magic included in it. Right? Um, Svelte, which is also similar to another one called Solid, which is also another framework that came out somewhat recently, but very similar to React, is that they take all of that work of figuring out what changed in the DOM.
Alvin Bryan: They take all of that work and put that in the compiler. So all of that stuff happens in the compile step. And so, and so the, the only JavaScript that gets shipped to the client is not a generic, you know, like a general purpose virtual DOM diffing library. It's, it's only the changes that your code has made to the DOM, if that makes sense.
Alvin Bryan: Um, yeah. So Svelte does that, and so, and so does Solid. So that's part of what makes it different, um, to react in like the conceptual, you know, um, nature of it. In, in terms purely as like for coding, it's, it's just a lot simpler. I think there's a lot, so there's no JSX, so it has its own component format.
Alvin Bryan: It can, looks like view, uh, and so every file is divided into three. You have a script tag, so like a normal script tag and HTML, which contains all of your JavaScript codes. Then you have your HTML, which is just standard HTML, and underneath that you have a style tag which contains your locally scoped CSS. So it's meant to be very, very minimal. So like, so, so with fail to write normal JavaScript, if you have a, I don't know if you have a function that takes, um, I'm just making stuff up here, but like, you know that it takes a string and then turns it into another string and then puts that in a component.
Alvin Bryan: You've read that in normal JavaScript, you can basically, Just copy, paste whatever you have from other projects, put it in the JS, and then pass that down into the html. So it's, it's meant to be, you know, minimal and like, I mean, it's failed, obviously. It's, it's in a name, so it's meant to be very minimal and fast.
Alvin Bryan: And, um, yeah. So that, that's the, the value prop of Svelte. Yeah.
Todd Libby: Yeah, that's what I've heard about Svelte is that it's fast and then a lot of people are praising it. Um, I know that, um, Scott Spence is one of the people that I know that works with Svelte. So is Scott, is actually somebody I'm looking to get on the podcast as well, um,
Alvin Bryan: yeah. He's running a meetup here in London.
Todd Libby: Okay. Yeah, yeah. I met Scott, uh, in November of last year at what, what we call the conference that won't be named.
Todd Libby: Um, yeah.
Alvin Bryan: That happened in London. Yep. Yep. I know the one,
Todd Libby: That, yeah, did happen in London. I had a great time in London. I think everybody, all the speakers that I was hanging out with did, but it was just that, yeah, that part of the, the conference part of it was not really, um, popular or, uh, yeah. Um, But anyways, uh, yeah, I met Scott there and, uh, definitely I've sat in on a couple of his streams and seen a few of his YouTube videos and, and it looks, that is something that actually looks like something that I could, um, sink my teeth into and, and learn.
Todd Libby: Um
Alvin Bryan: It's, it's very much for like, it, it's meant to be close to the web platform and there it can get a bit weird when you get into the state management of it and the reactivity of it, but the, the standard way of making component is quite close to writing regular HTML and JavaScript. There isn't a lot of like, you know, the React way of doing it in the same way you do with JSX.
Todd Libby: Yeah, I am one, and it might be because of the way that I've. You know, done things my entire career, but I am the, I am of the mindset that the less code, the better and the less weight to a site, the better perform for performance. 'cause performance for me, performance falls under, uh, accessibility. If you have a
Alvin Bryan: sure.
Todd Libby: you have an accessible site for the most part.
Todd Libby: Um, that's one piece in the, in the cog for me. Um, so. I definitely, definitely check that out. Um, we were gonna talk about, uh, here's something that, um, keeping in the, uh, development, um, topic. You know, I've heard a lot about, uh, headless CMSs and I've, I've. You know, I've read articles and I, and I've talked to people about them, but I've never, I don't think I've ever used one, and I don't think I've ever really dove into anything, um, that uses a headless CMS.
Todd Libby: So, I know probably a lot of the listeners will know what a headless CMS is, but for me, enlighten me and. Educate me on what is a headless CMS and what benefit does it serve? If I am building a site and I need a headless CMS,
Alvin Bryan: Right. Um, so for full disclosure, Um, I work at Contentful, uh, which is, you know, one, a headless CMS provider. You mentioned. We mentioned, uh, Scott Spence earlier who works at StoryBlok, which is another, uh, headless CMS provider. Um, so for, for me, the, the biggest paradigm shift with headless is, um, Compared to traditional CMS is you break away from the concept of, uh, of your make.
Alvin Bryan: You have a content management system website, just have a content management system. In WordPress or whatever, like, um, when you're, you create a page and that page is somewhat the same page on your website, right? You're, you're still thinking in, um, of your content in terms of like a website, right? Like pages and, and other things.
Alvin Bryan: With headless CMS, you're thinking of your content in terms of, um, Like atomic blocks. So this is, so this is a title, right? This is, um, this is a carousel, for example. And that carousel can be in one page. It can be in three pages. It can be in the same page three times. Um, so that's, that's the, that's the main idea.
Alvin Bryan: And it's, and you're, so, you s–so you sever that connection between like, oh, this, this page is one page. And then what you do is you, after you've created all this collection of blocks, you serve them into, uh, with an API. And it's the idea that anything can consume this API. So we have, like, this works very well for bigger companies, right?
Alvin Bryan: So if you are, um, we do a lot of work with Ikea. So if your Ikea, your content is on your website, it's on a catalog, it's on the side of a billboard somewhere. It's on the back of a truck. And so, so that, that's the idea, right? So your have decentralized place that own, you know, contains on your content and anything that can make an API call can receive that content.
Todd Libby: I'm on the Contentful website right now and I've checked this. So now that I think about it, I used to use WordPress a lot and I developed, oh, I was a WordPress developer for a number of years. I, correct me if I'm wrong, but they are a headless CMS now as well?
Alvin Bryan: So you can run it headless. So they don't do the, so it's, they've not basically killed the old WordPress and replaced it with headless. Both products exist, so you can create your, your WordPress site with, uh, you know, with, with the old interface, with your new, uh, Gutenberg editor, which is a lot more like block based.
Alvin Bryan: And so you can either run a classic WordPress site as you would code that back in the days, or you can serve that content with an API and it'll then consume it with whatever.
Todd Libby: Okay. I used, okay, so then, Before I stopped doing WordPress development, and I'm totally moved away from, from WordPress, uh, entirely. I did use Gutenberg for a very, very short time, and it, um, not as, not headless though, so okay. That, that everything's beginning to, everything's beginning to click now. Um, but yeah, I, I actually, I think I might have signed up.
Todd Libby: I think I might have signed up for for Contentful and then. I think I might have signed up for StoryBlok too. I, I definitely have to check these out. So we are gonna have all these links in the, in the show notes Definitely. Um, for people to check out. So now talking about Contentful you’re, DevRel at Contentful, so how is it working for Contentful and can tell me a little bit about your role there as dev Developer Relations, uh, at Contentful.
Alvin Bryan: For sure. So we have a, uh, an, an entire team, so it's not just me. So there's, uh, there's five of us. So we have, um, myself, two other developer advocates. One is based in Berlin, the other one in DC in the US Uh, we have a director also based in the US and a community lead. So, yes, we have a full on DevRel team.
Alvin Bryan: So we, with everyone kind of has their own like specialties in a way. Uh, the community manager obviously, uh, community lead, uh, pardon me, Katie does, uh, all things community. She's gonna, she's running our Discord. She's gonna launch very soon. Um, on and for, for the three developer advocates, again, like one, we, we'd all do a bit of everything.
Alvin Bryan: We definitely have specialties. Harshil does a lot of conference talks. I would do more, uh, content and like podcasts, for example. Um, I'll help with, um, organizing events. Um, my colleague Brittany would do like more, would do workshops, also do a lot of work organizing events. So yes, it's, it's a mix.
Todd Libby: So, yeah. Okay. So there's a lot of kind of like, um, you know, between the five of you have a lot of different, um, revolving parts that are in specialized places. Okay. Um, so. I, I'm very interested in the DevRel side of things because I am currently moving away from the accessibility space trying to move into DevRel, which is why I asked.
Todd Libby: Uh, so, um, what about your role, um, doing DevRel uh, is, I guess, excites you and, and like, um, what do you find, um, that you get out of doing DevRel because you did, uh, front end development for, for so long, you kind of shifted away from, uh, the programming aspect of things into the content creation, uh, side things.
Todd Libby: So, uh, how was that transition and how, how do you like it?
Alvin Bryan: I think–so my opinion of this changed a little bit, so I. I still think the, the stereotype that like if you, if you do the, you don't code is not true. Um, I still feel like you're, you're either, you have to keep coding 'cause you're, you're have, I mean it's, you're, you'll be building demos and stuff like that, but if, even if you're not, it's like actually coding.
Alvin Bryan: I still think you're spending a lot of time thinking about coding, about like, okay, what's. What's happening? Uh, so in my case, we're Contentful. We are working with a lot with like front end developers, which is good 'cause it's me. Uh, but like what's happening in front end stuff. What is the, what are the new frameworks?
Alvin Bryan: Where do we need to have an integration? Uh, what, you know, what programming languages are, you know, happening? Where do we spend effort? If we wanna make a demo again, what languages we use? So, it's, so you're still very much in the, in the coding world. Um, for me, I, I am, I wanna be close to the code. I, I think with the, especially in the last six months as I write this, so it's about, it's been about a year, so my second six month at Contentful, there were a lot of events, so this was very, very, very, focused on events and I spent a lot less time coding than I did previously.
Alvin Bryan: And I think that was a combination of factor. But the, and, and, and you know this, 'cause you've been doing conferences and stuff, they all, they all tend to happen at the same time between March and June, which can get a little bit ridiculous. Um, especially, you know, with travel and everything. So, it's hard, it's kind of hard to get down in.
Alvin Bryan: Focus on code, so that, that's been, um, I wouldn't say a struggle, more like unexpected. When, you know, in the last, you know, yeah. In the past six months or so, so that, yeah. Otherwise, that transition's been very easy. 'cause I, I still get to code. I like the variety of it. Uh, I, I've never been so, uh, I've never been so much of a product person.
Alvin Bryan: I mean, I, I like it, but I feel like I'm much more of a project person. I, I really like things that have a, a beginning, and an end. And, uh, demos are very much that for me. Like they're the small projects or even like, um, starter guides. Um, so all of that stuff is still very much, you know, a small, a small, small, self-contained project, which is the kind of coding stuff that I like.
Alvin Bryan: I'm, I'm, I really like this compared to like, working on this one feature of this one part of the product for a year or two. Um, again, different people, different things. But that for, for me, for me that that's, it's something I really like.
Todd Libby: Yeah, that's the part too, for me anyways, when I looked at DevRel as being something that I could possibly get into was, okay, I could potentially go work for a company, get behind what they do in their, in their product or products that, you know, do these little demos and still keep that coding, um, part, you know, fresh and, and then go to conferences and, and talk about the stuff.
Todd Libby: And maybe even as far as I go, um, bring in the accessibility side of things to it so, um, it, that's, that, that's the part for DevRel that really piqued my interest when I, 'cause I had just gone through burnout and, um, I believe I read somewhere that you had gone through burnout as well?
Alvin Bryan: I wouldn't call it a full burnout. I think, uh, I stopped when I saw the first, I guess, signs of it creeping in and that that's when I stopped. I was like, eh, that, that's, that's not sounding good. I, I think it was, uh, just a combo of, um, I. Um, working in, in News. So before, before Contentful I worked for, for the Wall Street Journal.
Alvin Bryan: So, and you know, the, the news cycle in the past three years has not been great, to say the least. Um, so I think it was just, uh, you know, being exposed to that a fair bit, um, you know, pandemic stuff. The, even though my team was great, the, the, uh, it was a huge, still is very much a huge honor, uh, to have worked there.
Alvin Bryan: So, it, it wasn't necessarily like for like, from like over the work, I think. 'cause sometimes that's one of the reasons people burn out. Um, I think it was just a combination of like all these things that are like, like more like small accumulation of, of things that made me wanna stop and like, uh, take a break.
Todd Libby: Yeah.
Alvin Bryan: and then reassess and then apply, apply for, for other jobs and everything.
Todd Libby: Yeah, yeah, definitely. So, my to, to relate to that, I have been burnt out multiple times during my career. I saw it coming. Yet me, I'm stubborn and tried to work my way through it. That did not work. So, I don't recommend working through burnout. I recommend if you see the signs and you know the signs, just stop.
Todd Libby: Like you know you did Alvin, and step back and say, okay, take some time away and I'm gonna reassess everything. Then I'm gonna come back hopefully refreshed. You know that you know that spark again. Me on the other hand, I worked three straight years going through audit, after accessibility audit, after accessibility audit, and it just burnt me out.
Todd Libby: So, um, thus the move out of accessibility. I've had some time off now. Uh, I'm ready to get back into it. I've actually found some stuff that really excites me. It's brought back that feeling when I was a kid, and I was learning Commodore Basic. So, um, yeah. So–
Todd Libby: let's talk about, um, this, this show, this Billions show now I'm gonna click the link here.
Alvin Bryan: I, I, I guess sorry, to, to, to carry on for, for DevRel. One thing that I didn't mention, that can be, uh, uh, like guess a reason to code again is conference talks. Like it's a huge part of devel, right? Just, uh, I, I, I, I don't do it as much anymore. But that's, and it's also what, uh, people associate with DevRel a lot.
Alvin Bryan: So there is all this developer advocates speaking at all these conferences and, um, and, and they're good at it, and they're doing content, even if now it can be YouTube or whatever, but that all of this content is code. I mean, I, you don't have to talk about code, but if you're, if you're building something that people would wanna watch at a conference talk, there's a very high chance this will involve coding.
Alvin Bryan: Um,
Todd Libby: Right.
Alvin Bryan: that's also another part of DevRel that will keep you coding for sure.
Todd Libby: Mm-hmm. Yeah. 'cause I mean, you see conferences and they have sponsor sponsors that h help make conferences happen. And, and, and at those conferences you have those sponsors, they have people at those booths, and those at those booths are Devereux. So, um, Definitely, um, definitely understand that.
Todd Libby: Yeah. That is a very big part. Do you, do you actually, do you do any conferences as part of your role with Contentful or are you just–okay. Okay, so potentially I could probably see you at a conference in the, in the
Alvin Bryan: Oh yeah, for sure, for sure. Like, um, so the, the, the conference that should not be named was on our radar for, for, for sponsorship, but I'm very glad we didn't, we didn't go ahead with it, but we, we, we could have seen each other there. Uh, yeah. Yeah. Uh, our, our last one was in CityJS. Uh, London again. Uh, we will be in CityJS in Berlin.
Alvin Bryan: Uh, we will be, uh, so I'm talking as sponsors. Um, we were at Render Atlanta also as, um, as sponsors. We had a booth. We did a workshop. Yeah, so, so yeah. Um, if it's not me, it might be a member of my team.
Todd Libby: Right. Okay. Can definitely keep out. Keep an eye out for that. Um, because I have. Well, since I've done live conferences, in-person conferences, and that's been about two years, um, I've only done one event internationally. Not the, not the best way to kick it off internationally, but it's still, um, you all dodged a bullet there,
Alvin Bryan: Yeah. Yeah. we're very, we luck out for sure.
Todd Libby: Yeah, um, but yeah, definitely, uh, we'll have to keep that in mind.
Todd Libby: I, as you know, hopefully if I settle into somewhere or, and, and there's a role for me out there in de with the company, uh, hopefully, uh, definitely be able to meet up at a, at a future conference hopefully. So–
Alvin Bryan: for sure.
Todd Libby: that would be cool. So this TV show.
Alvin Bryan: Yes, Steve?
Todd Libby: The weirdest things piqued my interest. So it's an American drama series called Billions.
Alvin Bryan: Yep.
Todd Libby: Tell me more about this, and why should I watch this? Because it looks pretty good actually.
Alvin Bryan: Yeah. Um, I think, well, it, it depends on what you like, but for me, um, I. It's, um, it's, it's hard to like sell it now. Okay. So, for me, what I like, so there's a couple things that I like. Number one is, so the, to to, to go back and give a little bit of the sort of like, um, context of it. So, the idea is there's on, so it's uh, headline by, um, two characters.
Alvin Bryan: Uh, the first one is, uh, Paul Giamatti, who plays, um, Chuck Rhodes, who is the US Attorn. Uh, Sorry, US attorney for the Southern District of New York. Um, and the, his and his sort of enemy is Damon Lewis, who plays, uh, Bobby Axelrod, who is a billionaire, um, working on Wall Street. Uh, he has a, he has his own firm called Ax Capital.
Alvin Bryan: So it's, it's, it's this, so it's, uh, it's what's happening in the very, like, the very, uh, top of like the New York power structures. Um, So, so, so that's the setting. The reason I, the reason I like it is, um, mostly 'cause it's, it's really interesting to see like the, to have an, uh, to see into that world.
Alvin Bryan: 'cause you know, as a, as a normal person, I don't know what the hell happens in, you know, hedge funds and how, you know, billion-dollar deals are made. And what's I love is–that for as the, as the series goes, you're never, like, you find yourself rooting for different characters and, and that shifts 'cause like, it, it turns out that basically when you get to that level, like one's really clean.
Alvin Bryan: So there's always like, you're, you're always sort of rooting for a character and then, ah, nah, I'm not sure. And then, yeah. I love it. It's, it's great fun. Uh, I learned a lot, like, uh, I, it, um, it's really fast like it there, there's a lot of like references to lots of things. Like, I remember when I, um, when I watched like the first season, I think I.
Alvin Bryan: Every time I finished watching an episode, I had like 10 tabs open. Like stuff, like references that were dropping that I didn't know about. And, uh, yeah, so it was, yeah, it's fast. Um, it's, yeah, uh, there's a lot of like American references, which for me, I had to Google for obvious reasons. Uh, but it, it, it was fun.
Alvin Bryan: Yeah. It talks about a lot of things. There's, um, Lots of various things, um, on display from like different industries. Yeah, I–I find it really interesting.
Todd Libby: Yeah, and I'm a–a–a Paul Giamatti fan personally,
Alvin Bryan: You're, you're, you're in for a treat. The, the dialogues are astonishing. Like one of the inspirations for the showrunners is David Mamet. Um, so he, so there's a lot of, a lot of work goes into the dialogues. Yeah, the, the dialogues are also like very impressive. It's like, it's, if you, like, if you appreciate like a good turn of phrase then like, just like the use of language, it's, it's also something that, uh, that different, the show definitely delivers on.
Todd Libby: Okay. Cool. I’ll definitely check that out then. Um, something else caught my eye on your site as I was, uh, going around on your, on your website. Um, and I've been talking about this with some people lately, is, uh, privacy and owning your own data. That's a big topic these days.
Alvin Bryan: For sure.
Todd Libby: you know, and that, you know, and, um, I try to, with the people I know and the people, uh, in, in my, in my circles, um, family, friends, that kind of thing. Um, try to teach them about privacy and, and data, you know, and that, you know,
Todd Libby: they still. Not as much these days as there used to be, but you know, there's still, you can, you can have your privacy, I feel, um, and definitely can own your own data. Um, talk a little bit about, uh, what you like about privacy and owning your own data and, and, um, then I'll follow that up with another question.
Alvin Bryan: I think that one thing we have to plug, I think there's two things we have to plug first, um, before I get into my grand explanation of privacy, um, use Signal and use Protonmail. I, I, I noticed that in, uh, when we, when we had an email exchange, use Protonmail too. So I would definitely encourage everyone to use these two services, especially Signal, like it's very good now, like there's very little that WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger or whatever else.
Alvin Bryan: does that Signal doesn't? So I would very much encourage, uh, everyone to go and use Signal before, before I had an article about this in my blog, but before, um, when, when Signal really kicked in popularity, it was because Elon Musk plugged it. But like these days it's less of an endorsement as it used to be two years ago.
Todd Libby: Yes.
Alvin Bryan: Um, So, yeah, privacy. I mean, not to go into like sort of grand statements, but it, it's kind of, it's, it's kind of fundamental, isn't it? It's like it, I mean, one in the purely like legal sense, it is one of the fundamental human rights. So there, there's that. Um, and you know, I feel like if you're, if you, if when we're talk, if when you're talking to someone you don't know what's gonna happen to that conversation, then you're become.
Alvin Bryan: Become less of yourselves. Right? You're kind of self-censoring in a way, even if you don't necessarily think about it, but like for obvious, this reason, we're not going, we're not tweeting our inner thoughts, right? 'cause we're, oh my God, what could happen if I know could get canceled or could happen to my job or whatever.
Todd Libby: Right.
Alvin Bryan: But if you don't trust that your conversation, your, you know, your privacy in general, you know, is, is respected. Like, uh, I mean, we're talking on a podcast, so we know that whatever we're saying is going to be public. But if after that we're in the same place, then we went to, we went to my house or your house, we would expect whatever we said to remain between us.
Alvin Bryan: Right. Not to be, um, not to have an Alexa device pick it up and, you know, record it or something.
Todd Libby: Right.
Alvin Bryan: So, um, I think that's right. I think the, the biggest. The, the one sentence sentiments that, well, private conversations are very important, and we should be, you know, fighting for that at all costs.
Todd Libby: No. Yeah, I am a Signal user. Uh,
Alvin Bryan: Sure.
Todd Libby: I love it. I trust it more than I would trust anything made from Meta. Um, definitely, you know, don't trust even Apple Messenger. Um,
Todd Libby: And as I say this, I look at my phone 'cause I have a message on my phone and the person that owned the phone number before me just had their link sent to their number, but it's not their number anymore. They–
Alvin Bryan: Oh, it’s yours now.
Todd Libby: their number. It's, it's my number now. And now I have a link to update that person's account. On my phone. So
Alvin Bryan: There you go.
Todd Libby: That's, that's good. Good timing.
Alvin Bryan: Yeah,
Todd Libby: So, um, but going back to Signal, I love Signal. I've been using it for probably about, oh gosh, I wanna say three to four years, maybe more.
Alvin Bryan: Yeah. It, it, it wasn't that good then. I, I feel like it was a harder sell. But now, today, it's very good. Like I don't, I, I really don't see a reason why you wouldn't. I mean, I, I know it's always, there's always a network effect problem, right? It's like you don't want to use the app because none of your friends use the app.
Alvin Bryan: And as a result, no one uses the apps.
Todd Libby: Right.
Alvin Bryan: But, uh, but in terms of features, like, I don't, I mean, it's, it's really hard to say, oh no, I can't use Web. I don't wanna use signal. 'cause it doesn't have like voice calls or group chats. All of these things are there now.
Todd Libby: Yes. Yeah, definitely. It's got, it's got a lot of good features. I use the video call. Feature when I'm away, uh, at conferences and I call home, um, you know, it's a great app. I feel better using it. I don't feel like, uh, there's, you know, somebody at say Apple or Meta, you know, looking at my stuff, looking at my conversations, just, you know, for whatever reason.
Todd Libby: Um, ProtonMail. I've been a big ProtonMail user. Can't recommend these Bo– you know, both of these, uh, signal and proton mail enough. Um, I, all my email goes there. Uh, I do have a burner account on, um, for Gmail, just because, you know, I use Google Sheets and all that.
Alvin Bryan: Yeah, you gotta use Google. It's annoying.
Todd Libby: yeah, is. Um, but you know, I don't.
Todd Libby: You know, not that I, I, you know, as we say over here, I, you know, not that I wear a tinfoil hat and I'm into all this conspiracy stuff, but I just don't trust big corporations with my data. It's just, I mean, I'm talking, you know, we're talking right now and my phone's probably gonna pick something up and I'm gonna be blasted with ads for something.
Alvin Bryan: Yeah.
Todd Libby: Um–
Alvin Bryan: And, and, and the problem. I think it's, it's, it, there, there's lots of problem with the way it's, um, it's framed, but it's not necessarily humans. Like, it's not like we, we know Mark Zuckerberg is not listening to anything. It doesn't care, but it's, it's, it's algorithms, right? It's the idea that they make a detailed profile of you and then.
Alvin Bryan: As a result, you know, we'll for, you know, for the purpose of showing you ads, but then, you know what, what happens, especially now with all, when all the ais are coming up. Like, what, what, what's happening when all this data about new is fed into more powerful systems? Like, you don't really want that. Like, especially if you can avoid it, like it's, you know,
Todd Libby: Y–Yeah. Yeah. And I, I, heavy thing. Against AI. Uh, well, not totally against AI, but I'm just very wary about AI because lately, um, MDN, the MDN Docs, MDN Docs, excuse me, um, they used AI. I, um, and it was generating answers. Or, or something, and I'd have to go back and look through, um, the exact article that Steve Faulkner wrote, but Mozilla made the mistake, I'll, I'll say, to use AI in the MDN docs, and these generated answers were not totally.
Todd Libby: Truthful or what they should have been. Therefore, they were giving out the wrong answers. So, you know, they're now backtracking and hopefully they get rid of that. Um, but yeah, it's, it's things like that. Now, on the flip side of the coin, I have, I used ChatGPT. Absolutely I have. Why? Because of the, I've generated talks. Talk titles from ChatGPT, um, you know, gimme 10 talk titles on accessibility, throw a little humor in it, and it's giving me 10 talk titles with, you know, what I want. And I mean, that works great. I love it. It's, it's fun. I actually find a little value in that, but when you get deeper into it and when you get, you know, I don't know how far this goes, but I've seen like things like, “oh, I had ChatGPT build me an entire app and stuff like that. Uh, me, I'd rather build my own stuff because I love code, I love, you know, doing all the heavy lifting myself. Cutting a corner like that. It's great. You go for it. I'm not knocking anybody that does it. Um, But I mean, I don't know. It's, it's not my, uh, not my cup of tea, I guess.
Todd Libby: So, um, yeah, I didn't get off my soapbox yet.
Alvin Bryan: Yeah, do, do you think, but. As, as someone who like, loves, like and does accessibility. Do you think like with like the speed improvements we're gonna get from GPT 'cause for, for a lot of like menial coding tasks, like it's definitely an improvement. Like if you wanna make like, I dunno, just make me 10 variations of a buttons that can test, like, you know, that GPT's perfect for that.
Alvin Bryan: Like why would you type this yourself? Right? There's no reason for, and I say 10, it could be a hundred, right? Um, so. With stuff like that, we're, we're definitely gonna save time in the long run. Do you think the industry will be like, okay, we're racing against the clock a little bit less now. Maybe we can get our stuff together with like accessibility performance?
Alvin Bryan: You optimistic there? Or are you a bit like, I dunno.
Todd Libby: I am optimistic, but also at the same time very cautious.
Alvin Bryan: Hmm.
Todd Libby: like things like accessibility overlays. They don't work and they just, they create more barriers than they do take them down. And of course there's also the ethics, but I won't go into that part. Um, and
Todd Libby: I get the same feeling with AI and accessibility. Sure I can go on ChatGPT, say, hey, gimme 10 examples of buttons that are accessible and it will create those how they are. You know, I'll go, you know, I'll go through that list and say, “oh, okay, it did a good job at doing this. This is, this actually works”.
Todd Libby: I don't fully subscribe to it yet,
Alvin Bryan: I, I think so. Sorry. I think maybe I wasn't super clear. So the, my, my thing is we're always sort of pushing, like accessibility and performance away because no time. Right? We’re always like, oh, I don't have time for this, don't have time for this performance. I don't have time for this accessibility stuff.
Alvin Bryan: Well, now you do, because of GPT you're, you're, you know, you're saving tons of time because there's a lot of stuff that, uh, GPT can code for you. Even if it's not everything, it's still a fair amount that, you know, uh, GPT can code faster and better for you. So do you think we'll be able to finally, or at least stop using the excuses of like, oh, no time for accessibility.
Todd Libby: Um, That's a very good question because I, you know, yeah. Generate this code for me and make it accessible, but will it, is my question.
Alvin Bryan: No, it won't for sure. I, I don't think it will, but more like, I feel like because we'll build things quicker
Todd Libby: Right.
Alvin Bryan: at least maybe we'll have time for the stuff that is important, that needs manual input, like–
Todd Libby: Right.
Alvin Bryan: Accessibility, performance–
Todd Libby: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, that said, if you still have that piece where somebody's going through and saying, “okay, we built this out in no time flat”, I'll, I'll take a look at it and see how accessible it is.
Alvin Bryan: Right.
Todd Libby: Do some testing, you know, and make sure that it is accessible. If that works, great, but you know, I–If the, if the process of accessibility still exists from the very beginning in my book anyways, that's, that's fine.
Todd Libby: It–for me, accessibility, and I say this all the time, accessibility goes back to even before the design phase. You have to talk about accessibility at the very start–
Alvin Bryan: Right. It’s not something you slap on top of it last minute. Right.
Todd Libby: Right? Because. If you've ever done anything in accessibility as far as, okay, we built this thing out, we built this site, or whatever, we are pushing it live tomorrow, then we'll go back and then we'll make sure it's accessible. You've now doubled up. You're, you're now your developers or your designers will have to go back and change things. It's less of a headache, less stress, less stress on developers, designers to say, do this from the very beginning at the outset. Even before, you know, at the conversation phase of what we're doing with this project.
Todd Libby: You're gonna find you, you will, you will always need to go back to make sure things are accessible, but it will be. Very, the, it'll be a lot less than if you just tack it on at the end. So,
Alvin Bryan: Yeah. Right.
Todd Libby: I think there is something there to answer your question that sure it can work, but will companies, will organizations make it work? I guess–
Alvin Bryan: Yeah. Right.
Todd Libby: is what I would say is my answer. So, um, So we're coming up on time in this, uh, few questions that actually I wanted to ask. I haven't asked these questions of my guests in a while, so I'm just gonna go back, uh, 'cause we have a little bit of time left. So, these are three questions I used to ask if you've watched seasons.
Todd Libby: What one, and I think maybe I did this in season two. Um, I asked these three questions at the very end of my guests, so. The first one being, what about the web these days excites you and keeps you excited in what you do?
Alvin Bryan: Um, I think it's the same that it's, it's always been for me, it's what I said in the beginning. I still love, like building beautiful things. I, I don't think we're done e–even, I even think maybe it's 'cause I'm, I'm, I've been doing DevRel, but I feel like I even see less beautiful things on the web now than I used to.
Alvin Bryan: So, uh, again, absolutely no data to back that fact. Maybe it's my browsing habits, I don't know. But yeah, it's, I still feel like, like a great. Great website, great browsing experience is still great. There's, um, even now with the, um, with the Apple Vision, maybe we're, maybe we're gonna build interfaces for different things and that, that's still super exciting to me.
Todd Libby: Yeah, I don't know about $3,600 ski goggles, but. Uh, the second question is, if there were one thing you could change about the web that we know today, what would that be?
Alvin Bryan: Oh. Pretty heavy question. Um, I'm gonna make, I'm gonna keep it technical. I wish I could style more things like, uh, like an audio player, let me style the progress bar, like, uh, you know, checkbox or whatever. Like, let me style these things don't make me, and it's one of the reasons we get people like building, like things that have like 32 divs instead of just a single button is because things are, buttons are not a good example, but you know what I mean?
Alvin Bryan: Like, um, Like, uh, like, uh, toggles, you know, like the, um, like a dark mode toggles, like a little, um, little iOS toggles. These are often mons–monsters of like nested divs and spans and whatever, but like, I wish I could style more native elements more easily.
Todd Libby: Yeah, definitely, I definitely, I am in agreement there. Um, I have been for quite a while, so. And the last question, what is your favorite part of, uh, we, I think we've covered this a little bit, but favorite part of front end development or design that you really, really liked the most in that, with the theme of the title of the show that you nerd out over.
Alvin Bryan: Yeah, I'm gonna use a different one. I think for me, what's great, what's also great about JavaScript, apart from like when I get, uh, when I get a, a, um, a project from a designer and it's, and I'm not sure if it's possible, I, we get excited about what we're building. What's great about JS is you can use it in so many places. Especially now, you can use it on, you know, embedded devices. You can make games, you have, uh, um, we have desktop apps that please don't use Electron, please use something else. But anyway, um, uh, yeah, so yeah, it, it runs in lots of places and I, and I think that's great. Like, um, React Native is good for, for all the trash I about React or React Native is great because it, you know, it goes to native code and everything.
Alvin Bryan: Um, There's a, there's a lot of places we can run JavaScript, and that's always exciting to me.
Todd Libby: And if people don't know out there that are listening, you can make your JavaScript accessible.
Alvin Bryan: Yes.
Todd Libby: So, is that I'm actually, um, putting together a talk about JavaScript and accessibility. So,
Alvin Bryan: Nice.
Todd Libby: I had to throw that out there. So, um, I like to close podcasts, letting my guests know, or letting my guests let the listeners know what they currently have going on, if you have anything going on where people can find you online.
Todd Libby: So the floor is yours.
Alvin Bryan: For sure. Uh, what's going on right now? I'm actually, we talked about Astro and I've been on another podcast to talk about it. I'm rewriting my website with it. Uh, moving on from the Old Gatsby, uh, and React stuff, uh, into, into Astro. I'm, I'm getting there. Uh, there are a few things, few things I had to iron out. Um, probably gonna have a blog post at the end of it to recap.
Alvin Bryan: But yeah, that, that's, that's been fun. It's been, um, A lot of code is great to clean out all this, all the, all the Gaby legacy and make things, it feels like I'm making things a little more portable, which is great. But yeah, rewriting my website, um, alvin.codes, uh, if I am doing my job right, you will not see it when it's, when I change, when I switch over to when the switch over to Astro goes live.
Alvin Bryan: But yeah, that's it.
Todd Libby: And anywhere online people can follow you as far as socials. If they want to get in touch, follow you.
Alvin Bryan: Yes. Um, so again, my website, alvin.codes is the best place. I'm on. I'm on all the things. I'm on Twitter, I'm on BlueSky, Mastodon. I have links on our website and we'll probably put some in the show notes too.
Todd Libby: Yes, definitely. Um, just as long as you don't hit your rate limit on Twitter, you'll be able find Alvin. as, as of this recording, um, I think I'm at, uh, I viewed about 598 tweets, so I guess I'm done for the day. Um, I'll be over at BlueSky, I guess hanging out. I don't know. Um,
Alvin Bryan: Who knows? Who knows?
Todd Libby: Yeah, and so. Let's actually, so you are, oh yeah.
Todd Libby: I don't know if we follow each other on, um, Mastodon, but I'll find you on Mastodon as well. Um, Alvin, thank you for, uh, chatting with me today, spending part of your day with me. I, I really appreciate it. Definitely will, um, be in touch a little bit about, uh, some Astro stuff and some Svelte stuff. it's, it's very intriguing.
Todd Libby: Um, And with that, uh, thank you listeners for tuning into the Front End Nerdery Podcast. Uh, I'll be back next time with another guest, hopefully with my co-host, Homer. Homer. Uh, if you're out there, uh, hopefully we'll see you soon. Uh, where we'll, we'll talk about, uh, we'll have new conversations about front end design development, other topics.
Todd Libby: It doesn't matter anymore. Um, it doesn't have to be front end. Um, if you would please rate this podcast on your podcast device of choice, like, subscribe and watch on the Front End Nerdery Podcast YouTube channel. This is going to be, as a little caveat here. This will be an audio only. Um, Uh, episode of the podcast.
Todd Libby: I let my, uh, guests, if they wish to not have this on YouTube, and then I, I fully respect that. So, uh, there won't be a video version of the, this, uh, episode, just the audio. There are links to transcripts and show notes that will be, Um, available for the podcast as well. I'm Todd Libby, and this has been the Front End Nerdery Podcast.
Todd Libby: Thanks, and we'll see you next time.